For one minute, walk outside, stand there, in silence, look up at the sky and contemplate how amazing life is.

Friends

25 June 2013

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT (Repeat)

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

I sit alone, breathing
in the silence of early morning. Outside the dawn is beginning to break. From
where I sit, huddled against the cold, I can just make out the awakening light
through the trees. Soon there will be bird noises. The tiny creatures will need
to fluff their feathers to keep warm. They’re lucky it didn’t snow in the night
although it would make a nice scene for me to look at.

All my nights are
spent in this chair because a recurring dream dictates that I do not go to bed.
Did I say recurring? The word should be used loosely because each one has a difference.

Have you ever had a
nightmare, one so scary you dare not shut your eyes again? Did you experience the cold sweat of relief when you realised it was just a dream? That’s how it
used to be with me but now… now there is no reprieve. I am doomed to spend my
days and nights in fear.

It started a year ago,
after the office dinner-dance. I had been dancing with the handsomest man in
the party, presumed to be an invited guest from another branch of the firm.
Yes, I fancied him. And why not? We were free agents. Newly freed, both
divorced from our partners, both childless and living alone.

His name was Nick.
Friends laughingly referred to him as Old Nick because he was older than most
of us by about twenty years. With his dark looks, age didn’t matter.

That evening I fell
for the smouldering eyes and the way he held his head to one side when he
spoke. You may think there was nothing remarkable about that, but you can’t see
what I did. The gesture seemed inviting and I was determined to find out to
what I was being invited.

I wore black that
night, a strappy, slinky number that suggested more than it showed. I know he
liked it by the way he fingered the straps as we danced. I’d only ever danced
inches away from a partner but with Nick I was held close to his body, the way
I’ve seen in films. We moved in unison, swaying, his body moulded to mine. I
didn’t know I was that lithe, to be honest.

It was like that all the
way through the evening. I had the greatest time and as the night wore on I
began to think about what might happen at the end. Would he want to take me
home? Would I invite him in? Of course, I would. He’d got me rearing to go and
I was determined to see it through.

You can imagine my
frustration when he left me after the last waltz. ‘Catch you later,’ was all he
said before disappearing through the double doors to face the moonlit night
alone.

~~~

It’s a man thing, I
realised, as I lay in bed and went over the evening events. Even so, ‘catch you
later’ was very off-putting. A girl didn’t know whether he meant it or if it
was merely an opt-out. Later on that night I was to find out.

Nick came to me as I
slept. In a dreamy state I welcomed him in my arms. It was him, yet he looked
different, older. The handsome face was, well, odd. If I told you it was
distorted you’d think, yeah, that’s how dreams are. I tried to recall how he
looked at the dance but those striking features eluded me. Now all I could see
was pockmarked skin and bloodshot eyes.

Although his suggestion
that we go on a train journey was met with surprise, I agreed. How we got there is a mystery but, yeah,
that’s how dreams are. We were comfortably seated in a compartment, the only two
people there, when he suddenly got to his feet, dragging me up as well. The
next thing I remember was being hustled along the corridor. I dropped my bag
and began to fret about losing the valuables, credit card and cash, but Nick
wouldn’t stop. Instead he dragged me further along until we reached the door.
The train was rocking with speed as he pushed it open and tried to throw me
out.

I woke up screaming.
My face and throat were wet with sweat. The duvet was on the floor, pillows
strewn on top. It took a long time to regain my calm and grasp that it was only
a dream.

Normally I forget dreams
the minute I wake, but this one lingered.
It haunted me through the tea and toast, it bothered me while I dressed,
and worried me even more when I was ready to go and couldn’t find my bag. Had I
left it at the hotel? Still somewhat taken aback by Nick’s sudden disappearance
I’d walked home, trying to analyse the whole thing. There was no need for money
and my house key was hidden under the pot in the garden. I never took it with
me when I went dancing.

~~~

The first thing I did
when I arrived at the office was to ring the hotel. No, Madam, no lost property
was handed in. I went round the staff, asking questions. No, Maria, they said,
they hadn’t seen anything lying around. Perhaps you didn’t take it to the
dance, suggested my closest working companion. I was pretty sure I did.

So I reported the loss
to the hotel, the office administrator, and the police.

It bothered me that I
should lose a bag in a dream and then find it really was lost.

After doing the
important things like notifying the bank, I settled down to work. In fact I
worked extra hard in the hope that the awful day would end quickly.

~~~

There wasn’t much of
interest on television but I carried on watching until my eyes began to blur. A
hot shower and an early night would be good, I thought, and then bed.

I climbed in, hugged
the comforting duvet to me, tugged the pillow into position, then went straight
to sleep. For once my overactive thoughts left me in peace.

~~~

He came again that
night, his presence announced by repeatedly uttering my name. Ma-reee-ya,
Ma-reee-ya. It made me shiver. He was dressed in black with a white silk scarf
knotted at the neck. Facial growth covered his chin, dark whiskers that made
him look older than his years. His distorted features were now quite grotesque,
sunken cheeks, a lopsided nose, swollen lips, one eye open, the other closed. He
was friendlier than before, although his grip on my hand was vice-like as he
invited me to accompany him for a walk.

Because the evening
was on the cool side, I slipped a shawl round my shoulders. A gift from a
friend, beige coloured, embroidered with peacocks and my initials MD in the
middle. We took the path that led to the
lake, pausing now and again to kiss, and for me to suffer the rising nausea each
time he pressed his lips against mine. I had no choice but to surrender since
his hold on me was like steel. I remember it so well. I also remember his
hysterical laughter as he pushed me into the lake.

Struggling to keep my
head above the murky water, I screeched and screeched that I couldn’t swim.

Then I woke, still
shaking with fear, horrified to feel so drenched. My rose patterned nightdress
was soaked with perspiration, the duvet wrapped so tight I sweated with the
heat.

And so it goes on. Every
night he tries to kill me, each attempt different to the last. His face is
skeletal now and the more gruesome he gets the worse the torture. The fear is so great I am afraid to sleep lest
he should succeed.

~~~

The man called Nick,
whom I met at the dance, rang me not so long back. He apologised for leaving me
so hurriedly and suggested we meet up for a night out. I turned him down. I
could no longer be sure if he and my ‘dream’ man were one and the same.

The psychiatrist had
lots of explanations about my state of mind, none of which I understood. I
mean, I was normal before all this started. Wasn’t I? Anyway, the psychiatrist
reckons that dreams are figments of imagination. You know, I would believe that
if it wasn’t for the fact that my handbag was found beside a railway line some
90 miles from where I live. I suppose someone, somewhere, is wearing my lovely
shawl since it is nowhere in the house and I am not careless enough to mislay
things without knowing.

So I sit here breathing
in the silence of early morning. Outside the dawn settles in. From where I sit,
huddled against the cold, I can see sunlight filtering through the trees. Soon
there will be bird calls. They are lucky it didn’t snow in the night. It
doesn’t matter to me; I’m too tired to go out these days. Since sleep is
something to dread I sit here, alone with my thoughts, and wonder how much
longer I must exist in this dream, doing nothing else but link figments of imagination
until they resemble life as it was.

If I could
differentiate between fantasy and reality things would be different. Maybe I
should turn the tables, take the lead, form a plan; a successful one. My best
friend thinks I am incapable of rational thought; she may be right but it would
be good to try and prove her wrong.

Elusive thoughts often
flutter through my head, ideas on how to bring an end to this mental
incarceration. Perhaps I should have not have turned Nick down after all. Maybe
a daytime rendezvous would help me see things more clearly. What’s that old
adage? Do unto others as they do unto you? Ah yes, now we’re talking!

It’s quite light
outside now. The birds are fighting each other for food. A woodpigeon lands on
a slender bough in the cherry tree, seesaws until the branch settles A feral cat
lurks behind the hydrangea; watching, waiting; food for a week. I too am
watching … and waiting. A chance is all I need, I think, as I turn to gaze at
the phone. ‘Hello, Nick,’ I’ll say. ‘How’re you doing?’

It is frightening how our dreams can take people from the "real" world and present them in a very different light. Sometimes, definitely not for the better either. I haven't been having that problem lately 'cause I've hardly been sleeping, sigh...but the bad dreams, I can definitely do without.

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